The whole life of the faithful disciple should be an act of repentance.Punishment remains as long as the sinner hates himself.The Pope neither can nor will remit punishment for sin.God must forgive first, and the Pope through his priests can then corroborate the remission.No one is sure of his own forgiveness.Every sinner who truly repents has a plenary remission of punishment due him without payment of money to any one.Every Christian, living or dead, has a full share in all the wealth of the Church, without letters of pardon, or receipts for money paid.Christians should be taught that the buying of pardons is in no wise to be compared to works of mercy.To give to a poor man is better than to pay money to a rich priest.Because of charity and the works of charity, man becomes better, whether he pays money to build a church or not.Pardon for sin is from Christ, and is free.The Pope needs prayers for himself more than ready money.Christians should be taught that the Pope does not know of the exactions of his agents who rob the poor by threat, otherwise he would prefer that Saint Peter's should lie in ashes than be built upon the skin, bones and flesh of his sheep.If the Pope can release souls from Purgatory, why does he not empty the place for love and charity?Since the Pope is the richest man in Christendom, why indeed does he not build Saint Peter's out of his own pocket?
The whole life of the faithful disciple should be an act of repentance.
Punishment remains as long as the sinner hates himself.
The Pope neither can nor will remit punishment for sin.
God must forgive first, and the Pope through his priests can then corroborate the remission.
No one is sure of his own forgiveness.
Every sinner who truly repents has a plenary remission of punishment due him without payment of money to any one.
Every Christian, living or dead, has a full share in all the wealth of the Church, without letters of pardon, or receipts for money paid.
Christians should be taught that the buying of pardons is in no wise to be compared to works of mercy.
To give to a poor man is better than to pay money to a rich priest.
Because of charity and the works of charity, man becomes better, whether he pays money to build a church or not.
Pardon for sin is from Christ, and is free.
The Pope needs prayers for himself more than ready money.
Christians should be taught that the Pope does not know of the exactions of his agents who rob the poor by threat, otherwise he would prefer that Saint Peter's should lie in ashes than be built upon the skin, bones and flesh of his sheep.
If the Pope can release souls from Purgatory, why does he not empty the place for love and charity?
Since the Pope is the richest man in Christendom, why indeed does he not build Saint Peter's out of his own pocket?
Such are the propositions that leaped hot from Luther's heart; but they are not all of one spirit, for as he wrote he bethought himself that Tetzel was a Dominican, and the Dominicans held the key to the Inquisition. Luther remembered the fate of Huss, and his inward eye caught the glare of fagots afire. So, changing his tone, to show that he was still a Catholic, he said, "God forgives no man his sin until the man first presents himself to His priestly Vicar."
Were it not for such expressions as this last, one might assume that man had no need of the assistance of priests or sacraments, but might go to God direct and secure pardon. But this would do away with even Martin Luther's business, so Brother Martin affirms: "The Church is necessary to man's salvation, and the Church must have a Pope in whom is vested Supreme Authority. The Church is not to blame for the acts of its selfish, ignorant and sinful professors."
One immediate effect of the Theses was that they put a quietus on the work of Brother John Tetzel. Instead of the people all falling prostrate on his approach, many greeted him with jeers and mud-balls. He was only a few miles away from Wittenberg, but newsreached him of what the students had in store, and immediately he quit business and went South.
But although he did not appear in person, Tetzel prepared a counter set of Theses, to the appalling number of one hundred thirteen, and had them printed and widely distributed. His agent came to Wittenberg and peddled the documents on the streets. The students got word of what was going on and in a body captured the luckless Tetzelite, led him to the public square, and burned his documents with much pomp and circumstance. They then cut off the man's coat-tails, conducted him to the outskirts of the town, turned him loose and cheered him lustily as he ran.
It will thus be seen that the human heart is ever the same, and among college students there is small choice.
The following Sunday Luther devoted his whole sermon to a vigorous condemnation of the act of his students, admonishing them in stern rebuke. The sermon was considered the biggest joke of the season.
Tetzel seemed to sink out of sight. Those whom he had sought to serve repudiated him, and Bishops, Electors and Pope declined to defend his cause.
As for Luther, certain Bishops made formal charges against him, sending a copy of his Theses to Pope Leo the Tenth. The Holy Father refused to interfere in what he considered a mere quarrel between Dominicans and Augustinians, and so the matter rested.
But it did not rest long.
The general policy of the Church in Luther's time was not unlike what it is now. Had he gone to Rome, he would not have been humiliated—the intent would have been to pacify him. He might have been transferred to a new territory, with promise of a preferment, even to a Bishopric, if he did well.
To silence men, excommunicate them, degrade them, has never been done except when it was deemed that the safety of the Church demanded it.
The Church, like governments—all governments—is founded upon the consent of the governed. So every religion, and every government, changes with the people—rulers study closely the will of the people and endeavor to conform to their desire. Priests and preachers give people the religion they wish for—it is a question of supply and demand.
The Church has constantly changed as the intelligence of the people has changed. And this change is always easy and natural. Dogmas and creeds may remain the same, but progress consists in giving a spiritual or poetic interpretation to that which once was taken literally. The scheme of the Esoteric and the Exoteric is a sliding, self-lubricating, self-adjusting, non-copyrighted invention—perfect in its workings—that all wise theologians fall back upon in time of stress.
Had Luther obeyed the mandate and gone to Rome, that would have been the last of Luther.
Private interpretation is all right, of course: the Church has always taught it—the mistake is to teach it to everybody. Those who should know, do know. Spiritual adolescence comes in due time, and then all things are made plain—be wise!
But Luther was not to be bought off. His followers were growing in numbers, the howls of his enemies increased.
Strong men grow through opposition—the plummet of feeling goes deeper, thought soars higher—vivid and stern personalities make enemies because they need them, otherwise they drowse. Then they need friends, too, to encourage: opposition and encouragement—thus do we get the alternating current.
That Luther had not been publicly answered, except by Tetzel's weak rejoinders, was a constant boast in the liberal camp; and that Tetzel was only fit to address an audience of ignorant peasantry was very sure: some one else must be put forward worthy of Martin Luther's steel.
Then comes John Eck, a priest and lawyer, a man in intimate touch with Rome, and the foremost public disputant and orator of his time. He proposed to meet Luther in public debate. In social station Eck stood much higher than Luther. Luther was a poor college professor in a poor little University—a mere pedagog, a nobody. That Eck should meet him was a condescension on the part of Eck—as Eck explained.
They met at the University of Leipzig, an aristocraticand orthodox institution, Eck having refused to meet Luther either at Erfurt or at Wittenberg—wherein Eck was wise.
The Bishop at Leipzig posted notices forbidding the dispute—this, it is believed, on orders from Rome, as the Church did not want to be known as having mixed in the matter. The Bishop's notices were promptly torn down, and Duke George decided that, as the dispute was not under the auspices of the Church, the Bishop had no business to interfere.
The audience came for many miles. A gallery was set apart for the nobility. Thousands who could not gain admittance remained outside and had to be content with a rehearsal of the proceedings from those who were fortunate enough to have seats.
The debate began June Twenty-seventh, Fifteen Hundred Nineteen, and continued daily for thirteen days.
Eck was commanding in person, deep of voice, suave and terrible in turn. He had all the graces and the power of a great trial lawyer. Luther's small figure and plain clothes put him at a disadvantage in this brilliant throng, yet we are told that his high and piercing voice was heard much farther than Eck's.
Duke George of Saxony sat on a throne in state, and acted as Master of Ceremonies. Wittenberg was in the minority, and the hundred students who had accompanied Luther were mostly relegated to places outside, under the windows—their ardor to cut off coat-tails hadquite abated.
The proceedings were orderly and dignified, save for the marked prejudice against Luther displayed by Duke George and the nobility.
Luther held his own: his manner was self-reliant, with a touch of pride that perhaps did not help his cause.
Eck led the debate along by easy stages and endeavored to force Luther into anger and unseemliness.
Luther's friends were pleased with their champion—Luther stated his case with precision and Eck was seemingly vanquished.
But Eck knew what he was doing—he was leading Luther into a defense of the doctrines set forth by Huss. And when the time was ripe, Eck, in assumed astonishment, cried out, "Why this is exactly that for which Huss the heretic was tried and rightly condemned!" He very skilfully and slyly gave Luther permission to withdraw certain statements, to which Luther replied with spirit that he took back nothing, "and if this is what Huss taught, why God be praised for Huss."
Eck had gotten what he wanted—a defense of Huss, who had been burned at the stake for heresy.
Eck put his reports in shape and took them to Rome in person, and a demand was made for a formal Bull of Excommunication against Martin Luther.
Word came from Rome that if Luther would amend his ways and publicly disavow his defense of Huss, further proceedings would cease. The result was avolley of Wittenberg pamphlets restating, in still bolder language, what had already been put forth.
Luther was still a good Catholic, and his quarrel was with the abuses in the Church, not with the Church itself. Had the Pope and his advisers been wise enough they would have paid no attention to Luther, and thus allowed opinion inside the Church to change, as it has changed in our day. Priests and preachers everywhere now preach exactly the things for which Huss, Wyclif, Ridley, Latimer and Tyndale forfeited their lives.
But the Pope did not correctly gauge the people—he did not know that Luther was speaking for fifty-one per cent of all Germany.
Orders were given out in Leipzig from pulpits, that on a certain day all good Catholics should bring such copies of Martin Luther's books as they had in their possession to the public square, and the books would there be burned.
On October Ninth, the Bull of Excommunication mentioning Luther and six of his chief sympathizers reached Wittenberg, cutting them off from the Church forever.
Luther still continued to preach daily, and declared that he was still a Catholic and that as Popes had made mistakes before, so had Pope Leo erred this time. With the Bull came a notice that, if Luther would recant, the Bull would be withdrawn and Luther would be reinstated in the Church.
To which Luther replied, "If the Bull is withdrawn I will still be in the Church."
Bonfires of Luther's books now burned bright in every town and city of Christendom—even in London.
Then it was that Wittenberg decided to have a bonfire of its own. A printed bill was issued calling upon all students and other devout Christians to assemble at nine o'clock on the morning of December Tenth, Fifteen Hundred Twenty, outside the Elster gate, and witness a pious and religious spectacle. A large concourse gathered, a pyre of fagots was piled high, the Pope's Bull of Excommunication was solemnly placed on top, and the fire was lighted by the hand of Martin Luther.
The Theses prepared by Tetzel had small sale. People had heard all these arguments before, but Luther's propositions were new.
Everything that Luther said in public now was taken down, printed and passed along; his books were sold in the marketplaces and at the fairs throughout the Empire. Luther glorified Germany, and referred often to the "Deutsche Theologie," and this pleased the people. The jealousy that existed between Italians and Germans was fanned.
He occasionally preached in neighboring cities, and always was attended by an escort of several hundred students. Once he spoke at Nuremberg and was entertained by that great man and artist, Albert Durer. Everywhere crowds hung upon his words, and often he was cheered and applauded, even in churches. He denounced the extravagance and folly of ecclesiastical display, the wrong of robbing the poor in order to add to the splendor of Rome; he pleaded for the right of private interpretation of the Scriptures, and argued the need of repentance and a deep personal righteousness.
Not only was Luther the most popular preacher of that day, but his books outsold all other authors. He gave his writings to whoever would print them, and asked for no copyright nor royalties.
A request came from the Pope that he should appear at Rome.
Such a summons is considered mandatory, and usuallythis letter, although expressed in the gentlest and most complimentary way, strikes terror to the heart of the receiver. It means that he has offended or grieved the Head of the Church—God's Vicegerent on earth.
In my own experience I have known several offending priests to receive this summons; I never knew of one who dared disregard the summons; I never knew of one who received it who was not filled with dire foreboding; and I never knew an instance where the man was humiliated or really punished.
A few years ago the American newspapers echoed with the name of a priest who had been particularly bold in certain innovations. He was summoned to Rome, and this was the way he was treated as told me with his own lips, and he further informed me that he ascertained it was the usual procedure:
The offender arrives in Rome full of the feeling that his enemies have wrongfully accused him. He knows charges have been filed against him, but what these charges are he is not aware. He is very much disturbed and very much in a fog. His reputation and character, aye! his future is at stake.
Before the dust of travel is off his clothes, before he shaves, washes his face or eats, he appears at the Vatican and asks for a copy of the charges that have been brought against him.
One of the Pope's numerous secretaries, a Cardinal possibly, receives him graciously, almost affectionately, andwelcomes him to Rome in the name of the Pope. As for any matter of business, why, it can wait: the man who has it in charge is out of the city for a day or so—rest and enjoy the splendor of the Eternal City.
"Where is the traveler's lodging?"
"What? not that—here!"—a bell is rung, a messenger is called, the pilgrim's luggage is sent for, and he is given a room in the Vatican itself, or in one of the nearby "Colleges." A Brother is called in, introduced and duly instructed to attend personally on His Grace the Pilgrim. Show him the wonders of Rome—the churches, art-galleries, the Pantheon, the Appian Way, the Capitol, the Castle—he is one of the Church's most valued servants, he has come from afar—see that he has the attention accorded him that is his due.
The Pilgrim is surprised, a trifle relieved, but not happy. He remembers that those condemned to die are given the best of food; but he tries to be patient, and so he accepts the Brother's guidance to see Rome—and then die, if he must.
The days are crowded full—visitors come and go. He attends this congregation and that—fetes, receptions, pilgrimages follow fast.
The cloud is still upon him—he may forget it for an hour, but each day begins in gloom—uncertainty is the only hell.
At last he boldly importunes and asks that a day shall be set to try his case.
Nobody knows anything about his case! Charges—what charges? However, a Committee of Cardinals wish to see him—why, yes, Thursday at ten o'clock!
He passes a sleepless night, and appears at the time appointed, haggard, yet firm, armed with documents.
He is ushered into the presence of the Cardinals. They receive him as an equal. A little speech is made, complimenting him on his good work, upon his uprightness, and ends with a gentle caution concerning the wisdom of making haste slowly.
Charges? There are no charges against the Pilgrim—why should there be? And moreover, what if there are? Good men are always maligned. He has been summoned to Rome that the Cardinals might have his advice.
The Pope will meet him tomorrow in order to bestow his personal blessing.
It is all over—the burden falls from his back. He gasps in relief and sinks into a chair.
The greatness of Rome and the kindness and courtesy he has received have subdued him.
Possibly there is a temporary, slight reduction of position—he is given another diocese or territory; but there is a promise of speedy promotion—there is no humiliation. The man goes home subdued, conquered by kindness, happy in the determination to work for the Church as never before.
Rome binds great men to her; she does not drive them away: her policy is wise—superbly, splendidly wise.
Luther was now beyond the pale—the Church had no further power to punish him, but agents of the Church, being a part of the Government, might proceed against him as an enemy of the State.
Word came that if Luther would cease writing and preaching, and quietly go about his teaching in the University, he would not be troubled in any way.
This only fired him to stronger expression. He issued a proclamation to the German Nation, appealing from the sentence of the Pope, stating he was an Augustinian monk, a Doctor of Theology, a preacher of truth, with no stain upon his character. He declared that no man in Italy or elsewhere had a right to order him to be silent, and no man or set of men could deprive him of a share in God's Kingdom.
He called upon all lovers of liberty who hoped for heaven to repudiate the "Babylonish Captivity"—only by so doing could the smile of God be secured. Thus did Martin Luther excommunicate the Pope.
Frederick, the Elector of Saxony, preserved a strictly neutral attitude. Martin Luther was his subject, and he might have proceeded against him on a criminal charge, and was hotly urged to do so, but his reply was, "Hands Off!"
The city of Worms was at this time the political capital of Germany. A yearly congress, or Diet, was held by the Emperor and his Electors, to considermatters of special import to the State.
As Frederick refused to proceed against Luther, an appeal was made to the Emperor, Charles the Fifth, asking that Luther be compelled to appear before the Diet of Worms and make answer to the charges that would there be brought against him.
It was urged that Luther should be arrested and carried to Worms and there be confined in the castle until the Diet should meet; but Charles had too much respect for Frederick to attempt any such high-handed procedure—it might mean civil war. Gladly would he have ignored the whole matter, but a Cardinal from Rome was at his elbow, sent purposely to see that Luther should be silenced—silenced as Huss was, if necessary. Charles was a good Catholic—and so for that matter was the Elector Frederick. The latter was consulted and agreed that if the Emperor would issue a letter of "safe-conduct," and send a herald to personally accompany the Reverend Doctor Luther to Worms, the Elector would consent to the proceedings.
The letter sent summoning Luther to Worms was an exceedingly guarded document. It addressed the excommunicated heretic as "honorable, beloved and pious," and begged him to accept the company and safe-conduct of the bearer to Worms and there kindly explain to the Emperor the import of his books and doctrines.
This letter might have been an invitation to a banquet, but Luther said it was an invitation to a holocaust, andmany of his friends so looked upon it. He was urged to disregard it, but his reply was, "Though the road to Worms were lined with devils I'd go just the same."
No more vivid description of Luther's trial at Worms has been given than that supplied by Doctor Charles Beard. This man was neither Catholic nor Protestant, so we can not accuse him of hand-illumining the facts to suit his fancy. Says Doctor Beard:
Towards noon on the Sixteenth of April, Fifteen Hundred Twenty-one, the watchers on the tower gate of Worms gave notice by sound of trumpet that Luther's cavalcade was drawing near. First rode Deutschland the Herald; next came the covered carriage with Luther and three friends; last of all, Justus Jonas on horseback, with an escort of knights who had ridden out from Worms to meet them. The news quickly spread, and though it was dinner-time, the streets were thronged, and two thousand men and women accompanied the heretic to his lodging in the house of the Knights of Saint John. Here he was close to the Elector, while his companions in his lodging were two Saxon councilors. Aleandro, the Papal Nuncio, sent out one of his servants to bring him news; he returned with the report that as Luther alighted from his carriage a man had taken him into his arms, and having touched his coat three times had gone away glorying as if he had touched a relic of the greatest saint in the world. On the other hand, Luther looked round about him, with his demoniac eyes, and said, "God will be with me."The audience to which Luther was summoned wasfixed for four P.M., and the fact was announced to him by Ulrich von Pappenheim, the hereditary marshal of the Empire. When the time came, there was a great crowd assembled to see the heretic, and his conductors, Pappenheim and Deutschland, were obliged to take him to the hall of audience in the Bishop's Palace through gardens and by back ways. There he was introduced into the presence of the Estates. He was a peasant and a peasant's son, who, though he had written bold letters to Pope and Prelate, had never spoken face to face with the great ones of the land, not even with his own Elector, of whose good-will he was assured. Now he was bidden to answer, less for himself than for what he believed to be the truth of God, before the representatives of the double authority by which the world is swayed. The young Emperor looked at him with impassive eyes, speaking no word either of encouragement or rebuke. Aleandro represented the still greater, the intrinsically superior, power of the successor of Peter, the Vicar of Christ. At the Emperor's side stood his brother Ferdinand, the new founder of the House of Austria, while round them were grouped six out of the seven Electors, and a crowd of princes, prelates, nobles, delegates of free cities, who represented every phase of German and ecclesiastical feeling.It was a turning-point of modern European history, at which the great issues which presented themselves to men's consciences were greater still than they knew.The proceedings began with an injunction given by Pappenheim to Luther that he was not to speak unless spoken to. Then John von Eck, Official-General of theArchbishop of Trier, champion of the Leipzig deputation, first in Latin, then in German, put, by Imperial command, two questions to Luther. First, did he acknowledge these books here present—showing a bundle of books which were circulated under his name—to be his own; and secondly, was he willing to withdraw and recall them and their contents, or did he rather adhere to and persist in them? At this point, Schurf, who acted as Luther's counsel, interposed with the demand, "Let the titles be read." The official, in reply, recited, one by one, the titles of the books comprised in the collected edition of Luther's works published at Basel, among which were the "Commentaries on the Psalms," the "Sermon of Good Works," the "Commentary on the Lord's Prayer," and besides these, other Christian books, not of a contentious kind.Upon this, Luther made answer, first in German, then in Latin, that the books were his.The form of procedure had been committed by the Emperor to Eck, Glapion, and Aleandro, and it may have been by their deliberate intention that Luther was now asked, whether he wished to defend all the books which he had acknowledged as his own, or to retract any part of them? He began his answer in Latin, by an apology for any mistakes that he might make in addressing personages so great, as a man versed, not in courts, but in monk-cells; then, repeating his acknowledgment of the books, proceeded to divide them into three classes. There were some in which he had treated the piety of faith and morals so simply and evangelically that his very adversarieshad been compelled to confess them useful, harmless, and worthy of Christian reading. How could he condemn these? There were others in which he attacked the Papacy and the doctrine of the Papists, who both by their teachings and their wretched examples have wasted Christendom with both spiritual and corporal evil. Nor could any one deny or dissimulate this, since the universal experience and complaint bear witness that, by the laws of the Pope and the doctrines of men, consciences are miserably ensnared and vexed, especially in this illustrious German nation. If he should revoke these books, what would it be but to add force to tyranny, and to open, not merely the windows, but the doors to so great impiety? In that case, Good God, what a cover of wickedness and tyranny would he not become! A third class of his books had been written against private persons, those, namely, who had labored to protect the Roman tyranny and to undermine the piety which he had taught. In these he confessed that he had been more bitter than became his religion and profession. Even these, however, he could not recall, because to do so would be to throw his shield over tyranny and impiety, and to augment their violence against the people of God. From this he proceeded to ask for evidence against himself and a fair trial, adducing the words of Christ before Annas: "If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil." Then, with a touch of his native boldness, he told his audience that it needed to beware lest the reign of this most excellent youth, Prince Charles, should become unhappy and of evil omen. "I might," he continued, "illustrate the matter more copiously by Scripturalexamples—as Pharaoh, the King of Babylon, the Kings of Israel—who most completely ruined themselves at the moment when by wisest counsels they were zealous to strengthen and pacify their kingdoms. For it is He who taketh the wise in their own craftiness, and overturns the mountains before they know it. Therefore it is needful to fear God. I do not say these things because my teaching or admonition is necessary to persons of such eminence, but because I ought not to withhold from Germany my due obedience. And with these things I commend myself to Your Most Serene Majesty, and to Your Lordships, humbly asking that you will not suffer me to be brought into ill repute by the efforts of my adversaries. I have spoken."This speech, spoken as it was with steady composure and a voice that could be clearly heard by the whole assembly, did not satisfy the official. His first demand was that, like the question to which it was in answer, it should be repeated in German. Next, Eck proceeded to point out that Luther's errors, which were the errors of former heretics, Wyclif, Huss and the like, had been sufficiently condemned by the Church, and particularly by the Council of Konstanz. If Luther were willing to recant them, the Emperor would engage that his other works, in which they were not contained, should be tenderly handled: if not, let him recollect the fate of other books condemned by the Church. Then, with the customary exhortation to all theological innovators, not to set their own opinions against those of apostles, saints and martyrs, the official said that what he wanted was a simple and straightforward answer: was Luther willing to recantor not? To which Luther replied: "Since Your Most Serene Majesty and Your Lordships ask for a simple answer, I will give it, after this fashion: Unless I am convinced by witness of Scripture or plain reason (for I do not believe in the Pope or in Councils alone, since it is agreed that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am overcome by the Scriptures which I have adduced, and my conscience is caught in the Word of God. I neither can nor will recant anything, for it is neither safe nor right to act against one's conscience." Then having given this answer in both languages, he added in German, "God help me! Amen."The semblance of trial, which alone was allowed to Luther, was now over; it only remained to pass sentence. Early on the morning of the Nineteenth of April the Emperor summoned the Diet once more to take counsel upon the matter. The Estates asked for time to deliberate; on which the Emperor, replying that he would first give them his own opinion, produced a document written in his own hand. Beginning with the statement of his descent from Emperors, Kings of Spain, Archdukes of Austria, and Dukes of Burgundy, all of whom had lived and died faithful sons of the Church and defenders of the Catholic faith, it announced the identity of his policy with theirs. Whatever his predecessors had decreed in matters ecclesiastical, whatever had been decided by the Council of Konstanz and other Councils, he would uphold. Luther had set himself against the whole of Christendom, alleging it to be, both now and for a thousand years past, in error, and only himself in possession of thetruth. The Estates had heard the obstinate answer which he had made the day before; let him be no further heard, and let him be taken back whence he came, the terms of his safe-conduct being carefully observed; but let him be forbidden to preach, nor suffer to corrupt the people with his vile doctrine. "And as we have before said, it is our will that he should be proceeded against as a true and evident heretic."
Towards noon on the Sixteenth of April, Fifteen Hundred Twenty-one, the watchers on the tower gate of Worms gave notice by sound of trumpet that Luther's cavalcade was drawing near. First rode Deutschland the Herald; next came the covered carriage with Luther and three friends; last of all, Justus Jonas on horseback, with an escort of knights who had ridden out from Worms to meet them. The news quickly spread, and though it was dinner-time, the streets were thronged, and two thousand men and women accompanied the heretic to his lodging in the house of the Knights of Saint John. Here he was close to the Elector, while his companions in his lodging were two Saxon councilors. Aleandro, the Papal Nuncio, sent out one of his servants to bring him news; he returned with the report that as Luther alighted from his carriage a man had taken him into his arms, and having touched his coat three times had gone away glorying as if he had touched a relic of the greatest saint in the world. On the other hand, Luther looked round about him, with his demoniac eyes, and said, "God will be with me."
The audience to which Luther was summoned wasfixed for four P.M., and the fact was announced to him by Ulrich von Pappenheim, the hereditary marshal of the Empire. When the time came, there was a great crowd assembled to see the heretic, and his conductors, Pappenheim and Deutschland, were obliged to take him to the hall of audience in the Bishop's Palace through gardens and by back ways. There he was introduced into the presence of the Estates. He was a peasant and a peasant's son, who, though he had written bold letters to Pope and Prelate, had never spoken face to face with the great ones of the land, not even with his own Elector, of whose good-will he was assured. Now he was bidden to answer, less for himself than for what he believed to be the truth of God, before the representatives of the double authority by which the world is swayed. The young Emperor looked at him with impassive eyes, speaking no word either of encouragement or rebuke. Aleandro represented the still greater, the intrinsically superior, power of the successor of Peter, the Vicar of Christ. At the Emperor's side stood his brother Ferdinand, the new founder of the House of Austria, while round them were grouped six out of the seven Electors, and a crowd of princes, prelates, nobles, delegates of free cities, who represented every phase of German and ecclesiastical feeling.
It was a turning-point of modern European history, at which the great issues which presented themselves to men's consciences were greater still than they knew.
The proceedings began with an injunction given by Pappenheim to Luther that he was not to speak unless spoken to. Then John von Eck, Official-General of theArchbishop of Trier, champion of the Leipzig deputation, first in Latin, then in German, put, by Imperial command, two questions to Luther. First, did he acknowledge these books here present—showing a bundle of books which were circulated under his name—to be his own; and secondly, was he willing to withdraw and recall them and their contents, or did he rather adhere to and persist in them? At this point, Schurf, who acted as Luther's counsel, interposed with the demand, "Let the titles be read." The official, in reply, recited, one by one, the titles of the books comprised in the collected edition of Luther's works published at Basel, among which were the "Commentaries on the Psalms," the "Sermon of Good Works," the "Commentary on the Lord's Prayer," and besides these, other Christian books, not of a contentious kind.
Upon this, Luther made answer, first in German, then in Latin, that the books were his.
The form of procedure had been committed by the Emperor to Eck, Glapion, and Aleandro, and it may have been by their deliberate intention that Luther was now asked, whether he wished to defend all the books which he had acknowledged as his own, or to retract any part of them? He began his answer in Latin, by an apology for any mistakes that he might make in addressing personages so great, as a man versed, not in courts, but in monk-cells; then, repeating his acknowledgment of the books, proceeded to divide them into three classes. There were some in which he had treated the piety of faith and morals so simply and evangelically that his very adversarieshad been compelled to confess them useful, harmless, and worthy of Christian reading. How could he condemn these? There were others in which he attacked the Papacy and the doctrine of the Papists, who both by their teachings and their wretched examples have wasted Christendom with both spiritual and corporal evil. Nor could any one deny or dissimulate this, since the universal experience and complaint bear witness that, by the laws of the Pope and the doctrines of men, consciences are miserably ensnared and vexed, especially in this illustrious German nation. If he should revoke these books, what would it be but to add force to tyranny, and to open, not merely the windows, but the doors to so great impiety? In that case, Good God, what a cover of wickedness and tyranny would he not become! A third class of his books had been written against private persons, those, namely, who had labored to protect the Roman tyranny and to undermine the piety which he had taught. In these he confessed that he had been more bitter than became his religion and profession. Even these, however, he could not recall, because to do so would be to throw his shield over tyranny and impiety, and to augment their violence against the people of God. From this he proceeded to ask for evidence against himself and a fair trial, adducing the words of Christ before Annas: "If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil." Then, with a touch of his native boldness, he told his audience that it needed to beware lest the reign of this most excellent youth, Prince Charles, should become unhappy and of evil omen. "I might," he continued, "illustrate the matter more copiously by Scripturalexamples—as Pharaoh, the King of Babylon, the Kings of Israel—who most completely ruined themselves at the moment when by wisest counsels they were zealous to strengthen and pacify their kingdoms. For it is He who taketh the wise in their own craftiness, and overturns the mountains before they know it. Therefore it is needful to fear God. I do not say these things because my teaching or admonition is necessary to persons of such eminence, but because I ought not to withhold from Germany my due obedience. And with these things I commend myself to Your Most Serene Majesty, and to Your Lordships, humbly asking that you will not suffer me to be brought into ill repute by the efforts of my adversaries. I have spoken."
This speech, spoken as it was with steady composure and a voice that could be clearly heard by the whole assembly, did not satisfy the official. His first demand was that, like the question to which it was in answer, it should be repeated in German. Next, Eck proceeded to point out that Luther's errors, which were the errors of former heretics, Wyclif, Huss and the like, had been sufficiently condemned by the Church, and particularly by the Council of Konstanz. If Luther were willing to recant them, the Emperor would engage that his other works, in which they were not contained, should be tenderly handled: if not, let him recollect the fate of other books condemned by the Church. Then, with the customary exhortation to all theological innovators, not to set their own opinions against those of apostles, saints and martyrs, the official said that what he wanted was a simple and straightforward answer: was Luther willing to recantor not? To which Luther replied: "Since Your Most Serene Majesty and Your Lordships ask for a simple answer, I will give it, after this fashion: Unless I am convinced by witness of Scripture or plain reason (for I do not believe in the Pope or in Councils alone, since it is agreed that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am overcome by the Scriptures which I have adduced, and my conscience is caught in the Word of God. I neither can nor will recant anything, for it is neither safe nor right to act against one's conscience." Then having given this answer in both languages, he added in German, "God help me! Amen."
The semblance of trial, which alone was allowed to Luther, was now over; it only remained to pass sentence. Early on the morning of the Nineteenth of April the Emperor summoned the Diet once more to take counsel upon the matter. The Estates asked for time to deliberate; on which the Emperor, replying that he would first give them his own opinion, produced a document written in his own hand. Beginning with the statement of his descent from Emperors, Kings of Spain, Archdukes of Austria, and Dukes of Burgundy, all of whom had lived and died faithful sons of the Church and defenders of the Catholic faith, it announced the identity of his policy with theirs. Whatever his predecessors had decreed in matters ecclesiastical, whatever had been decided by the Council of Konstanz and other Councils, he would uphold. Luther had set himself against the whole of Christendom, alleging it to be, both now and for a thousand years past, in error, and only himself in possession of thetruth. The Estates had heard the obstinate answer which he had made the day before; let him be no further heard, and let him be taken back whence he came, the terms of his safe-conduct being carefully observed; but let him be forbidden to preach, nor suffer to corrupt the people with his vile doctrine. "And as we have before said, it is our will that he should be proceeded against as a true and evident heretic."
The difference between heresy and treason, at one time, was very slight. One was disloyalty to the Church, the other disloyalty to the State.
Luther's peril was very great. The coils had been deliberately laid for him, and he had as deliberately placed his neck in the noose. Surely his accusers had been very patient—every opportunity had been given to him to recant.
Aleandro, the Papal Nuncio, argued that, in the face of such stubborn contumacy and insult to both Pope and Emperor, the Emperor would be justified in canceling his safe-conduct and arresting Luther then and there. His offense in refusing to retract was committed at Worms and his trial should be there—and there he should be executed.
The Elector Frederick was a stronger man far in personality than was the Emperor Charles. "The promise of safe-conduct must be kept," said Frederick, and there he rested, refusing to argue the merits of the case by a word, one way or the other.
Frederick held the life of Luther in his hand—a waver, a tremor—and the fagots would soon crackle: for the man who pleads guilty and refuses pardon there is short shrift.
Luther started back for Saxony. All went well until he reached the Black Forest within the bounds of the domain of Frederick; when behold, the carriages andlittle group of horsemen were surrounded by an armed force of silent and determined men. Luther made a stout defense and was handled not over-gently. He was taken from his closed carriage and placed upon a horse—his friends and guard were ordered to be gone.
The darkness of the forest swallowed Luther and his captors.
News soon reached Wittenberg, and the students mourned him as dead.
His enemies gloried in his disappearance, and everywhere told that he had been struck by the vengeance of God.
Luther was lodged in the Castle of Wartburg, and all communication with the outside world cut off.
The whole scheme was a diplomatic move on the part of the Elector. He expected a demand would be made for the arrest of the heretic. To anticipate this demand he arrested the man himself; and thus placed the matter in position to legally resist should the prisoner be demanded.
The Elector was the Governor, and the Estate was what would be to us a State—the terms "state" and "estate" being practically the same word. It was the old question of State Rights, the same question that Hayne and Webster debated in Eighteen Hundred Thirty, and Grover Cleveland and John P. Altgeld fought over in Eighteen Hundred Ninety-four. The Elector Frederick prepared for a legal battle, and woulddefy the "Federal Arm" by force if worse came to worst.
Luther remained a prisoner for seven months, and so closely guarded was he that he only knew by inference that his keepers were his friends. The Elector was discreet: he held no personal communication with Luther.
In December, Fifteen Hundred Twenty-one, the prisoner was allowed to go to Wittenberg on a three-days' parole. When he appeared at the University he came as one from the dead. The event was too serious for student jollification; many were struck dumb with astonishment and glad tears of joy were upon every cheek—and by common consent all classes were abandoned, and a solemn service of thanksgiving held in the church, upon the door of which, four years before, this little college professor had tacked his Theses.
All understood now that Luther was a prisoner—he must go back to his prison. He admonished his hearers to be patient, but to be firm; cleave to what they believed to be right, even though it led to the scaffold. He administered the sacrament, and through that congregation, and throughout Saxony, and throughout all Germany ran the vow, silent, solemn and serious, that Martin Luther's defiance of Papal authority was right. The Church was made for man and not man for the Church—and come what may, this man Luther must be protected even though the gutters ran with blood.
When would his trial occur? Nobody knew—but therewould be no haste.
Luther went back to prison, but not to remain there. His little lease of liberty had been given just to see which way the wind lay. He was a prisoner still—a prisoner on parole—and if he was taken out of Saxony it could only be by illegal means.
The action of the Elector was as wise and as successful a bit of legal procedure as ever mortal lawyer worked: that it was all done without the advice, consent or connivance of the prisoner makes it doubly admirable.
Luther set himself to work as never before, writing and preaching. He kept close to Wittenberg and from there sent forth his thunders of revolt. Outside of Saxony, at regular intervals, edicts were read from pulpits ordering any and all copies of Luther's writings to be brought forward that they might be burned. This advertised the work, and made it prized—it was read throughout all Christendom.
That gentle and ascetic Henry the Eighth of England issued a book denouncing Luther and telling what he would do with him if he came to England. Luther replied, a trifle too much in kind. Henry put in a pious rejoinder to the effect that the Devil would not have Luther in hell. In their opinion of Luther the Pope and King Henry were of one mind.
So lived Martin Luther, execrated and beloved. At first he sought to serve the Church, and later he worked to destroy it. After three hundred years, the Catholic Church still lives, with more communicantsthan it had in the days of Luther. The fact that it still exists proves its usefulness. It will still live, and it will change as men change. The Church and the Pope are not the detestable things that Martin Luther pictured them; and Protestantism is not the sweet and lovely object that he would have us believe. All formal and organized religions will be what they are, as long as man is what he is—labels count for little.
In Fifteen Hundred Twenty-five Martin Luther married "Catharine the Nun," a most excellent woman, and one whom rumor says had long encouraged and upheld him in his works. Children came to bless them, and the picture of the great heretic sitting at his wooden table with little Johnny Luther on his knee, his loving wife by his side, and kind neighbors entering for a friendly chat, shows the great reformer at his best.
He was the son of a peasant, all his ancestors were peasants, as he so often told, and he lived like a peasant to the last. For himself he wanted little. He sided with the people, the toilers, with those who struggled in the bonds of slavery and fear—for them he was an Eye, an Ear, a trumpet Voice.
There never lived a braver man—there never lived one more earnest and sincere. He fought freedom's fight with all the weapons God had given him; and for the liberty we now enjoy, in great degree, we are debtors to Martin Luther.
I was not, like His Grace of Bedford, swaddled and rocked and dandled into a legislator; "nitor in adversum" is the motto for a man like me. I possessed not one of the qualities, nor cultivated one of the arts, that recommend men to the favor and protection of the great. I was not made for a minion or a tool. As little did I follow the trade of winning the hearts, by imposing on the understandings of the people.At every step of my progress in life, for in every step I was traversed and opposed, and at every turnpike I met, I was obliged to show my passport, and again and again to prove my sole title to the honor of being useful to my country, by a proof that I was not wholly unacquainted with its laws and the whole system of its interests both abroad and at home; otherwise no rank, no toleration even, for me.
I was not, like His Grace of Bedford, swaddled and rocked and dandled into a legislator; "nitor in adversum" is the motto for a man like me. I possessed not one of the qualities, nor cultivated one of the arts, that recommend men to the favor and protection of the great. I was not made for a minion or a tool. As little did I follow the trade of winning the hearts, by imposing on the understandings of the people.
At every step of my progress in life, for in every step I was traversed and opposed, and at every turnpike I met, I was obliged to show my passport, and again and again to prove my sole title to the honor of being useful to my country, by a proof that I was not wholly unacquainted with its laws and the whole system of its interests both abroad and at home; otherwise no rank, no toleration even, for me.
—Edmund Burke
EDMUND BURKE
EDMUND BURKE
In the "American Encyclopedia," a work I cheerfully recommend, will be found a statement to the effect that Edmund Burke was one of the fifteen children of his parents. Aside from the natural curiosity to know what became of the fourteen, the matter is of small moment, and that its truth or falsity should divide men is most absurd.
Of this, however, we know: the parents of Burke were plain people, rescued from oblivion only through the excellence of this one son. The father was a lawyer, and fees being scarce, he became chief clerk for another barrister, and so lived his life and did his work.
When Edmund Burke was born at Dublin in the year Seventeen Hundred Twenty-nine, that famous city was at its flood-tide of prosperity. It was a metropolis of commerce, art, wit, oratory and literary culture. The one name that looms large to us out of that time is that of Dean Swift, but then there were dozens just as great as he—so-said.
Edmund must have been a bright, fine, attractive boy, for we hear that certain friends of his parents combined with his father and they bent themselves to the task of sending the lad to Trinity College. Before this, however, he had spent some time at a private school kept by oneAbraham Shackleton, an Englishman and a member of the Society of Friends. Shackleton was a rare, sweet soul and a most excellent teacher, endowed with a grave, tranquil nature, constant and austere. Between his son Richard and young Mr. Burke there sprang up a close and affectionate friendship which neither time nor circumstance was able to dim.
Now, the elder Burke was a lawyer, but not a great lawyer.
What more natural, therefore, than that the boy Edmund should follow in his father's footsteps and reap the fame and high honors which an unkind Fate had withheld from his worthy parent?
There was another boy destined for fame at Trinity College while Burke was there, but they did not get acquainted then. Some years later they met in London, though, and talked it over.
In countenance these two young men had a certain marked resemblance. Reynolds painted pictures of both Burke and Goldsmith, and when I looked at these portraits this morning, side by side, I said, "Sir Joshua hadn't quite got the Burke out of his brush before he painted the Goldsmith." Burke is Goldsmith grown big.
Each had a weak chin, which was redeemed by the fine, full forehead and brilliant eye.
In face and features, taken as a whole, Burke had a countenance of surpassing beauty. Note the full sensuous lips, the clear, steady, lustrous, beaming eye, the splendid head! There is nothing small, selfish,mean or trifling about the man—he is open, frank, sympathetic, gentle, generous and wise.
He is a manly man.
No wonder that even the staid and chilly Hannah More loved him; and little Miss Burney worshiped at his shrine even in spite of "his friendship for those detested rebels, the Americans; and the other grievous sin of persecuting that good man, Warren Hastings."
Goldsmith was small in stature, apologetic in manner, hesitating, and at times there was a lisp in speech, which might have been an artistic and carefully acquired adjunct of wit, but it was not. Burke was commanding in stature, dignified, suave, and in speech direct, copious and elegant. Goldsmith overworked the minor key, but Burke merely suggests that it had not been omitted.
At college young Burke did not prove a brilliant student—his intellect and aptitude it seems were a modest mouse-color that escaped attention.
His reading was desultory and pretty general, with spasms of passion for this study or that, this author or the other. And he has remarked, most regretfully, that these passions were all short-lived, none lasting more than six weeks.
It is a splendid sign to find a youth with a passion for any branch of work, or study, or for any author. No matter how brief the love, it adds a ring of growth to character; and if you have loved a book once it is easy to go back to it. In all these varying moods of likes anddislikes, Burke was gathering up material for use in after-years.
But his teachers did not regard it so, neither did his father.
He got through college after a five-years' course, aged twenty, by the grace of his tutors. He knew everything except what was in the curriculum.
Tall, handsome, with hair black as the raven's wing, and eyes that looked away off into space, dreamy and unconcerned, was Edmund Burke at twenty.
His father was a business lawyer, with a sharp nose for technicalities, quirks and quillets, but the son studied law as a literary curiosity. Occasionally there were quick chidings, answered with irony needlessly calm: then the good wife and mother would intervene with her tears, and the result was that Burke the elder would withdraw to the open air to cool his coppers. Be it known that no man can stand out against his wife and son when they in love combine.
Finally it was proposed that Edmund go to London and take a course of Law at the Middle Temple. The plan was accepted with ill-concealed alacrity. Father and son parted with relief, but the good-by between mother and son tore the hearts of both—they were parting forever, and Something told them so.
It evidently was the intention of Burke the elder, who was a clear-headed, practical person, competent in all petty plans, that if the son settled down to lawand got his "call," then he would be summoned back to Dublin and put in a way to achieve distinction. But if the young man still pursued his desultory reading and scribbling on irrelevant themes, why then the remittances were to be withdrawn and Edmund Burke, being twenty-one years of age, could sink or swim. Burke pater would wash his hands in innocency, having fully complied with all legal requirements, and God knows that is all any man can do—there!
In London town since time began, no embryo Coke ever rapped at the bar for admittance—lawyers are "summoned" just as clergymen are "called," while other men find a job. In England this pretty little illusion of receiving a "call" to practise law still obtains.
Burke never received the call, for the reason that he failed to fit himself for it. He read everything but law-books. He might have assisted a young man by the name of Blackstone in compiling his "Commentaries," as their lodgings were not far apart, but he did not. They met occasionally, and when they did they always discussed Spenser or Milton, and waxed warm over Shakespeare.
Burke gave Old Father Antic the Law as lavish a letter of recommendation as the Legal Profession ever received, and he gave it for the very natural reason that he had no use for the Law himself.
The remittances from Dublin were always small, but they grew smaller, less frequent and finally ceased. It was sink or swim—and the young man simply paddled to keep afloat upon the tide of the times.
He dawdled at Dodsley's, visited with the callers and browsed among the books. There was only one thing the young man liked better to do than read, and that was to talk. Once he had read a volume nearly through, when Dodsley up and sold it to a customer—"a rather ungentlemanly trick to play on an honest man," saysBurke.
It was at Dodsley's that he first met his countryman Goldsmith, also Garrick, Boswell and Johnson. It was then that Johnson received that lasting impression of Burke, of whom he said, "Sir, if you met Edmund Burke under a gateway, where you had taken shelter for five minutes to escape a shower, you would be so impressed by his conversation that you would say, 'This is a most extraordinary man.'"
If one knows how, or has to, he can live in a large city at a small expense. For nine years Burke's London life is a tale of a garret, with the details almost lost in the fog. Of this time, in after-years, he seldom spoke, not because he was ashamed of all the straits and shifts he had to endure, but because he was endowed with that fine dignity of mind which does not dwell on hardships gone and troubles past, but rather fixes itself on blessings now at hand and other blessings yet to come. Then, better still, there came a time when work and important business filled every moment of the fast-flying hours. And so he himself once said, "The sure cure for all private griefs is a hearty interest in public affairs."
The best searchlight through the mist of those early days comes to us through Burke's letters to his friend Richard, the son of his old Quaker teacher. Shackleton had the insight to perceive his friend was no common man, and so preserved every scrap of Burke's writing that came his way.
About that time there seems to have been a sort of meteoric shower of chipmunk magazines, following in the luminous pathway of the "Spectator" and the "Tatler." Burke was passing through his poetic period, and supplied various stanzas of alleged poetry to these magazines for a modest consideration. For one poem he received eighteen pence, as tearfully told by Shackleton, but we have Hawkins for it that this was a trifle more than the poem was worth.
Of this poetry we know little, happily, but glimpses of it are seen in the Shackleton letters; for instance, when he asks his friend's criticism of such lines as these:
"The nymphs that haunt the dusky wood,Which hangs recumbent o'er the crystal flood."
He speaks of his delight in ambient sunsets, when gilded oceans, ghostly ships, and the dull, dark city vanish for the night. Of course, such things never happen except in books, but the practise of writing about them is a fine drill, in that it enables the writer to get a grasp on his vocabulary. Poetry is for the poet.
And if Burke wrote poetry in bed, having to remain there in the daytime, while his landlady was doing up his single ruffled shirt for an evening party, whose business was it?
When he was invited out to dinner he did the meal such justice that he needed nothing the following day; and the welcome discovery was also made that fastingproduced an exaltation of the "spiritual essence that was extremely favorable to writing good poetry."
Burke had wit, and what Johnson called a "mighty affluence of conversation"; so his presence was welcome at the Turk's Head. Burke and Johnson were so thoroughly well matched as talkers that they respected each other's prowess and never with each other clinched in wordy warfare. Johnson was an arch Tory, Burke the leader of the Whigs; but Ursa was wise enough to say, "I'll talk with him on any subject but politics." This led Goldsmith to remark, "Doctor Johnson browbeats us little men, but makes quick peace with those he can not down." Then there were debating societies, from one of which he resigned because the limit of a speech was seven minutes; but finally the time was extended to fifteen minutes in order to get the Irish orator back.
During these nine years, once referred to by Burke as the "Dark Ages," he had four occupations: book-browsing at Dodsley's, debating in the clubs, attending the theater on tickets probably supplied by Garrick, who had taken a great fancy to him, and his writing.
No writing man could wish a better environment than this: the friction of mind with strong men, books and the drama stirred his emotions to the printing-point.
Burke's personality made a swirl in the social sea that brought the best straight to him.
One of the writers that Burke most admired wasBolingbroke, that man of masterly mind and mighty tread. His paragraphs move like a phalanx, and in every sentence there is an argument. No man in England influenced his time more than Bolingbroke. He was the inspirer of writers. Burke devoured Bolingbroke, and when he took up his pen, wrote with the same magnificent, stately minuet step. Finally he was full of the essence of Bolingbroke to the point of saturation, and then he began to criticize him. Had Bolingbroke been alive Burke would have quarreled with him—they were so much alike. As it was, Burke contented himself by writing a book after the style of Bolingbroke, carrying the great man's arguments one step further with intent to show their fallacy. The paraphrase is always a complement, and is never well done except by a man who loves the original and is a bit jealous of him.
If Burke began his "Vindication of Natural Society," with intent to produce a burlesque, he missed his aim, and came very near convincing himself of the truth of his proposition. And in fact, the book was hailed by the rationalists as a vindication of Rousseau's philosophy.
Burke was a conservative rationalist, which is something like an altruistic pessimist. In the society of rationalists Burke was a conservative, and when with the conservatives he was a rationalist. That he was absolutely honest and sincere there is not a particle of doubt,and we will have to leave it to the psychologists to tell us why men hate the thing they love.
"The Vindication of Natural Society" is a great book, and the fact that in the second edition Burke had to explain that it was an ironical paraphrase does not convince us it was. The things prophesied have come about and the morning stars still sing together. Wise men are more and more learning by inclining their hearts toward Nature. Not only is this true in pedagogics, but in law, medicine and theology as well. Dogma has less place now in religion than ever before; many deeply religious men eschew the creed entirely; and in all pulpits may be heard that the sublime truths of simple honesty and kindness are quite enough basis for a useful career. That is good which serves. Religions are many and diverse, but reason and goodness are one.
Burke's attempt to prove that without "revealed religion" mankind would sit in eternal darkness makes us think of the fable of the man who planted potatoes, hoed them, and finally harvested the crop. Every day while this man toiled, there was another man who sat on the fence, chewed a straw and looked on. And the author of the story says that if it were not for the Bible, no one would have ever known to whom the potatoes belonged.
Burke wrote and talked as all good men do, just to clear the matter up in his own mind. Our wisest moves are accidents. Burke's first book was of a sort so strikingthat both sides claimed it. Men stopped other men on the street and asked if they had read the "Vindication"; at the coffeehouses they wrangled and jangled over it; and all the time Dodsley smiled and rubbed his hands in glee.
Burke soon blossomed out in clean ruffled shirt every morning, and shortly moved to a suite of rooms, where before he had received his mail and his friends at a coffeehouse.
Then came William Burke, a distant cousin, and together they tramped off through rural England, loitering along flowering hedgerows, and stopping at quaint inns, where the villagers made guesses as to whether the two were gentlemen out for a lark, smugglers or Jesuits in disguise.
One of these trips took our friends to Bath, and there we hear they were lodged at the house of a Doctor Nugent, an excellent and scholarly man. William Burke went back to London and left Edmund at Bath deep in the pursuit of the Sublime. Doctor Nugent had a daughter, aged twenty, beautiful, gentle and gracious. The reader can guess the rest.
That Burke's wife was a most amiable and excellent woman there is no doubt. She loved her lord, believed in him and had no other gods before him. But that she influenced his career directly or through antithesis, there is no trace. Her health was too frail to follow him—his stride was terrific—so she remained at home,and after every success he came back and told her of it, and rested his great, shaggy head in her lap.
Only one child was born to them, and this boy closely resembled his mother in intellect and physique. This son passed out early in life, and so with Edmund died the name.
The next book Burke launched was the one we know best, "On the Sublime." The original bore the terrifying title, "A Philosophical Inquiry Into the Origin of Our Ideas Concerning the Sublime and Beautiful." This book consists of one hundred seventeen chapters, each chapter dealing with some special phase of the subject.
It is the most searching and complete analysis of an abstract theme of which I know. It sums the subject up like an essay by Herbert Spencer, and disposes of the case once and forever. It is so learned that only a sophomore could have written it, and we quite forgive the author when we are told that it was composed when he was nineteen.
The book proved Burke's power to follow an idea to its lair, and its launching also launched the author upon the full tide of polite society. Goldsmith said, "We will lose him now," but Burke still stuck by his coffeehouse companions and used them as a pontoon to bridge the gulf 'twixt Bohemia and Piccadilly.
In the meantime he had written a book for Dodsley on "English Settlements in North America," and this did Burke more good than any one else, as it caused him to focus his inquiring mind on the New World. After this man began to write on a subject, his intellect became luminous on the theme, and it was his forevermore.
At routs and fetes and four-o'-clocks, Burke was soughtas an authority on America. He had never been there—he had but promised himself that he would go—for a sick wife held him back. In the meantime he had seen every man of worth who had been to America, and had sucked the orange dry. Macaulay gives the idea when he describes Burke's speech at the Warren Hastings trial. Burke had never been to India; Macaulay had, but that is nothing.
Says Macaulay: